Alive

Prologue

Damon woke up that morning in Mystic Falls as he did for the past days. The past weeks. The past months. That's how long he had stayed there already. He didn't know what had drawn him there in the first place but he knew what kept him there all this time. It had nothing to do with Stefan. He actually couldn't care less about his brother. What Stefan did or did not wasn't of Damon's interest.

He had looked for something to release Katherine from the tomb in every place of the world but witches weren't that easy to find and most of them had no idea of how to do it. It seems like there weren't any like Emily anymore but he had never given up on finding a way to free Katherine. He had heard about Sheila a few decades ago, when she was still too young. He had actually spied on her for a few months but had come to the conclusion that she was as much useless as the other ones for what he wanted and that had never became a reason for him to stick around Mystic Falls. He had hatred the city that had condemned the love of his life. He had never wanted to come back here but somehow that's where he ended up.

He was living in the city he grew up for almost a year now. And while he didn't know why he came but he knew why he never left. It was because of her. It would always be her.

Finding out that Katherine wasn't in the tomb hurt him a lot but not more than realizing that he had resisted the urge to come back for too long. If he had followed his instincts he would have met her before Stefan. Maybe he could have saved her parents. Just like he had saved her friends. Just like he had saved her so many times in those months. Just like he had saved his brother. One year ago Damon wouldn't think of saving anyone, let alone humans, but that was before his humanity rose in his un-beating heart. And there was only one reason why it did. Her, Elena Gilbert.

He had only realized it when he found out that Katherine was back but not necessarily because of Katherine. The kiss they shared while he thought she was Elena had proved to him that the brunette was indeed capturing his heart, no matter how much he fought against it and tried to deny it. And not even Katherine's presence had changed it. Surely he had hated her for fooling him for a century and a half, pretending to be dead but he was sure that if he had never met Elena he would somehow forgive Katherine. Love was a powerful thing and he knew it. So powerful that he was afraid of dealing with it as much as he was afraid of daylight without his lapis lazuli ring. Love was foreign land to Damon. It was no lie that he had loved Katherine as a human and had been obsessed about her as a vampire but love had led him to do things that he had never thought before, the worst of them, fighting and hating his brother.

At some point in his life Stefan had been the person Damon loved the most. Ever since their mother died all he had was his baby brother as Giuseppe wasn't that much of a father to him, at least not as much as he was to the brooding sibling. Damon had never thought that one day he would pick anything over Stefan. The same feeling that made him so loyal to Stefan had led him to want his brother dead. Surely as he learned how to switch off the feelings and also deal with his new condition as a vampire, Damon stopped hating Stefan but he knew their relationship would never be the same as it was before Katherine came in the picture. And Damon wasn't willing to take the risk of falling in love again or even loving someone as a friend again because he was sure he didn't know how to handle the feeling that seemed so foreign to him.

Ever since Katherine was back Elena moved to the Salvatore's house to make the house inhabited by humans and by so keeping Katherine away. It required a lot of convincing because Jenna definitely didn't think that having her teenager niece living with two men, one of them her boyfriend was what her sister and brother-in-law had in mind. He never suggested using compulsion on Jenna. He knew that if Elena thought that was the best or maybe the only way she would come to him. He made her sure that she could come to him at any time with anything she needed. There was nothing she could ask him that he wasn't willing to do. And he knew she knew it.

And that's why he woke up because he could hear her heartbeat increasing and for once it didn't involve his brother pleasuring her in their nest of love. Most of the times when Damon woke up in the morning because of her deafening heartbeat were because Stefan was making sure to increase it. But not today.

It surprised him that sometimes his brother's moves in the house didn't wake him up though they were much louder than Elena's fragile and sometimes not so quiet pulsation. Anything would be louder than her heartbeat, just like the person that had just left a bundle in front of the Salvatore's boarding house. But Damon didn't realize what Elena did because every time her heartbeat got his attention it was like he was in a trance and everything around him didn't exist.

Surely she couldn't have listened to the woman that was now walking away, calmly, as if she had done nothing. Surely Elena couldn't listen to the almost silent 'thud' of the bundle hitting the floor. No, unlike Damon she wasn't supposed to listen to those noises, almost nonexistent for someone that was inside one of the rooms in the second floor. But still she woke up. Still she felt something bothering her. At first she thought it would be thirst though she wasn't one that usually woke up in the middle of the night – or in the morning for that matter – just to have some water. She actually didn't fell thirsty at all but she couldn't bring herself to sleep again.

Convincing herself that a glass of water or maybe even better – milk – would probably help her to enjoy the last couple of hours she still had to sleep, she decided to go downstairs. She got her robe from the hanger – she needed to be careful with Damon around. Though she knew he was doing nothing but teasing when he addressed her in little clothing, or leaving the bathroom after a shower, it still made her blush. Actually lately it had made a little bit more than bring up her shyness. It made her stomach turn in knots but she made a very good job of ignoring these. It was a good thing that such movements inside of her didn't produce any noise. She had Stefan to assure her that muscles contractions was too much even for vampires hearing. She surely didn't want Damon and especially Stefan to know how Damon always present but never old jokes made her feel.

Damon heard when she stood up and got her usual robe and headed out of Stefan's room. He listened carefully as she made her way downstairs. He knew Elena was a deep sleeper and never really got up because she needed to feed, drink or pee. It was odd for her to descend the staircase so early.

His more awaken state now allowed him to listen to footsteps some yards from the boarding house. He quickly moved from his bed not bothering to put some clothes on. He walked to his window and looked outside but he didn't have a view of the house's front. He was about to go to the roof to know who or what was walking away from his house so early in the morning when he heard something totally unexpected.

Actually the noise was quite loud and Elena stopped preparing her milk when she heard it too. She moved towards the source of the sound and was met by Damon who was taking each step down the stairs very slowly. He held a confused and odd face as if he couldn't believe on what his ears were telling him. It couldn't be. How did they dare?

That was probably the first time that Elena ever saw Damon incredulous and somewhat defensive. It was unexpected and she knew it by the too much slow speed - even for humans - in which he moved down the stairs. She wouldn't wait for him to finally process the obvious and she quickly moved to the front door, where the sound came from and opened it a little too rudely. And there stood, if that could even be the appropriate word, the confirmation of her suspicions. In no time Damon was behind her and his eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing.

"What the hell?" he said to no one, still shocked.

AN: IMPORTANT INFORMATION: I'm a slow writer not only in the pace I update but in the pace the story moves. It'll take some chapters until it peaks so it will get better, maybe not as much as you expect but that's how I am as a writer. I can't just start with all the actions and elements there.

The plot is revealed in the following three chapters. And then there's the shock and everybody reacts a bit OOC because some developments are intrinsically unexpected especially for Damon. I'd say the good stuff will come around chapter 7-8 but I'm yet to write.

It doesn't start at any specific point of the show and it'll have more elements from the book than the producers decided to have in the show. But don't worry; everything will be clearly explained to those who hadn't read the books. For now you just need to know that Meredith, Elena's best friend along with Bonnie in the books, will be part of this.

This story will happen in a very long time line so don't expect Elena and Damon to just happen. There will be much more in their plates than only their rising feelings for each other. They'll fight those feelings for a very long time. But just because they won't be together promptly it doesn't mean they won't share some hot moments in the meanwhile.

Let me know what you think about it.

xoxo

Babi

I DO NOT OWN The Vampire Diaries or any of its characters. It belongs to L. J. Smith and the CW.